Scheips
at the Shangri-La Hotel in Paris, where de Wolfe lived in the
1930s.

For
Manhattan-based writer, curator and cultural historian Charlie Scheips,
recalling his younger years means reminiscing about his time spent
growing up in Shorewood — a childhood that included watercolor
classes at the Milwaukee Art Museum, day trips to the Milwaukee Public
Museum and symphony performances at the Marcus Center for the
Performing Arts. So it’s no surprise that his professional career,
one filled with art, culture and history, mirrors his liberal
arts-infused upbringing.

Scheips was born
in New York City, but his father, a businessman with Milwaukee-based
clients, relocated his wife and son to Shorewood when Scheips was 5
years old. "He (my dad) told my mother how Milwaukee was a lovely
city," notes Scheips. He attended Atwater Elementary School and
Shorewood Intermediate School, and although he and his family moved
back to the East Coast just before Scheips entered high school, he
later returned to Wisconsin and enrolled at Ripon College, graduating
with a degree in art history in 1981.

Since graduating
college more than 30 years ago, Scheips has developed a resume that is
nothing short of impressive — a career that includes titles like
assistant director of PR at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago,
assistant and curator to famed artist David Hockney, and worldwide
director of the Phillips De Pury Auction House. It was Scheips’
decade-long post as founding director of the Conde Nast Archives,
however, that can be credited with spurring the idea behind his most
recent achievement — his new book, "Elsie de Wolfe’s Paris:
Frivolity Before the Storm."

Scheips’ job
involved digitizing all of the historical magazines under the Conde
Nast umbrella, from Vogue and The New Yorker to Vanity Fair and
Gourmet. The task led him to discover an intriguing series of
snapshots taken by Vogue social columnist John McMullen throughout
1920s and ‘30s-era France. Each photo captured the glamour and
extravagance characteristic of high society during that time, visually
documenting the rich and fabulous at play in Paris and the French
Riviera.

McMullen
was close friends with the subject of Scheips’ book, Elsie de Wolfe.
She was an American-born decorator once credited with establishing
interior design as a profession, and despite her U.S. roots, her
prominence in Parisian society was undeniable. De Wolfe married
diplomat Sir Charles Mendl in 1926, and she often hosted lavish
parties at their home in Versailles, the Villa Trianon.

One such party,
which Scheips describes as "the last great ball that happened in
France before the war," was her second annual Circus Ball, held
on July 1, 1939. A friend connected Scheips to the son of French
photographer Roger Schall, who had snapped nearly 250 photos at the
ball. The photos had yet to be published, so Scheips began planning
for their future, soon inking a book deal with Abrams Books. His new
book uses these photos to tell the story of a societal era gone by, a
precarious yet wildly opulent few years just before the declaration of
World War II.

Scheips will
return to Milwaukee later this month to promote the book. He is
scheduled to appear at the Villa Terrace Art Museum on April 30. To
purchase the novel, visit the museum’s bookstore or go to
abramsbooks.com/Books/Elsie_de_Wolfe_s_Paris-9781419713897.html.